Some Kind of Hell
by xx myth master xx
Summary: Maura wades through life trying to reacquaint herself to a world where she feel utterly lost and alone. This story exists solely because I love to put people through their worst kinds of Hell, I'm sadistic like that. Rizzles. One-shot.


The coffee sits untouched. There is no one making a ruckus in the early morning with breakfast that barely passes for food and multiple cups of coffee already drained. The coffee is cold now, the woman sitting alone doesn't seem to mind though. Her thoughts are elsewhere.

The house seems empty, as if the only thing making it feel like a home is missing from it. She twirls a loose strand of hair around her finger only to be pulled away from a daydream at the sound of her phone buzzing. For a moment she makes no motion to pick it. It feels odd without the other phone going off simultaneously.

"Isles," she finally manages to find her words. But it only feels wrong. The word hangs there in the air confused at having been uttered without its other half.

She stands up and walks out the door alone, the coffee still sitting on the counter.

Maura Isles wades through her day, it is a routine she has settled into: home, work, home, work, home. Everything around her has shifted, it is slower now, almost as if taunting her. Waiting for her to finally crack. But Maura follows the day, she does what she needs to. She cuts open dead people, she solves murders and sometimes she even saves lives. And when a face all too familiar, painfully so, flashes before her eyes she quickly drops her scalpel to take a break. She heads on over to her desk and shops for shoes and pretty bags that pile in a corner in the living room untouched and unopened.

Another pile that is forming lies in her kitchen, neatly arranged beer bottles drained to the last drop and a lonely unopened bottle of her favourite wine still corked, still untouched. It wouldn't taste the same anyway. The beer acts as a substitute to the woman who would otherwise curl up next to her on the couch after a long day.

 _Click!_ Another pair of black high heels into the cart. She is almost sure at least one of the same pair arrived sometime last week, not that it matters.

The first panic attack that came at her was three hours after. It had finally sunk in and Maura had collapsed onto the couch in her office gasping for air that refused to reach her lungs. Several followed that first in the coming days and weeks, but she finally managed to subdue them with medication. Only now she feels numb, going along with the motions. She isn't sure if it will end. Mostly though, she isn't sure if she wants it to. It feels wrong to go on. The puzzle suddenly doesn't make sense as if someone had flung all the pieces across the room and then blinded her so that she can never find them all again.

It is the nights that are usually the hardest. So when everyone else has already left the office. When pats on the back have been doled out for a long day of successful work and a perp caught and behind bars Marua stays back. She indulges in a bit of reading, some research, anything to not go to an empty home.

Korsak comes by and smiles at her. She returns the gesture half-heartedly.

"Well this case wrapped up pretty quick. A couple of us are heading to the Robber. Care to join?"

Maura smiles. He comes by every day, never wavering in his efforts to draw her back out into the world of the living. And every day she comes up with a feeble excuse to turn him down.

"It was a long day, Sergeant. I should head home."

He nods and leaves her office.

Maura picks up her things and heads to the elevator to find him still lingering about. This is a break from his usual pattern. He normally leaves her alone knowing well enough that she won't leave the precinct until well after dark.

The shiny metallic door to the lift slide open. "Dr. Isles," He gestures for her to step inside first.

"Thank you"

The silence in the space between them as the lift comes to life is thick, almost suffocating.

Vince looks over at Maura with eyes solemn and filled with what she could only call pity because sympathy should have run out a long time ago. It isn't unlike the way Angela and Frankie had looked at her before he put in for a transfer and she moved away with him. "You can't keep going on like this, Maura."

Maura makes no move to speak. Instead, she holds her breath wishing the lift would go faster, knowing that mathematically it will only travel at its proportional speed no matter how much she taps her heel against the rug on the floor.

"Jane wouldn't want this."

Maura stares straight ahead at the doors compelling them to open, no matter how illogical.

"Maura-"

Before he can complete his sentence Maura dashes out the barely open doors and heads straight for the ladies room.

She covers her mouth with one hand, stifling a sob and shuts the door behind her with the other. She then moves to make sure the stalls are empty before completely breaking down on the floor in mess that bothers her. But the irk is subdued by the grief ripping out of her chest.

Jane shoots herself and the terror that grips Maura is unlike anything she has every felt. Jane jumps off a bridge and she may as well have taken Maura down with her. Jane is cornered by weapon wielding psychopaths and it is Maura's heart that freezes mid beat until she is safe, until she is okay.

Maura is not okay anymore. She doesn't quite remember how to be. And the world around her keeps spinning. And people move on. And people tell her to move on. After all, it has been almost a year. But Maura can't help herself. And on the cold tiled floor of the precinct ladies room that is hardly sanitary and mostly filthy Maura can only think about the first time she met Jane. The first this she kissed her, because Jane would have forever been oblivious had Maura not pressed up against and wall and tasted those lips. The tears run dry and she smiles thinking about their first date and their phones going off before the waiter had even begun placing their meals on the table. She remembers the first time she got to explore Jane's body, bare and beautiful all laid out for her. All hers. She didn't think Jane would take charge so quickly, but there was laughter and teasing and then Jane was on top of her and then it was morning and Maura had never been so in love. Jane was the one who popped the question. She made it grand, said Maura deserved nothing less, but she also made it intimate. Just the two of them and an entire hall and lights and flowers. She even chose to forgo her usual beer in favour of Maura's favourite wine. There was kneeling on knees and the gorgeous ring that still sits on Maura's finger.

Maura had expected them to have children and grandchildren and long lives, even considering the risk involved in Jane's career. She couldn't come to grips with the fact that all she got was a little under two years. That wasn't nearly enough. But there she had stood, the widow at the funeral bustling with cops and friends. They left and she stood there stunned and sometimes it still felt like she was just there waiting for something to happen. Waiting for someone to tell her they were wrong all along and that person they put in the ground couldn't possibly be her Jane. But Maura had seen the body on the autopsy table. How she had frozen in terror.

Maura picks herself from the floor and straightens her skirt. No one is going to see her like this. Maura Rizzoli-Isles stands staring at the reflection in the mirror and wonders how long it will take for her to reacquaint herself to a world where the love of her life does not exist. Right now, it feels pretty impossible.

Korsak knocks on the door and then pokes his head in. Maura quickly wipes off a stray tear on her cheek and smiles.

"Sergeant, I've changed my mind. I'd love to join you at the Dirty Robber for a drink."

This is the first step.

Korsak nods and she follows him out the door.


End file.
